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Ontario

On February 6, 2017 the Province of Ontario adopted Regulation 20/17 "Reporting of Energy Consumption And Water Use" under the Green Energy Act of 2009. The regulation requires owners of Ontario's non-residential and multifamily buildings over 50,000 gross square feet to benchmarking and report their buildings' annual energy and water consumption.

Multifamily buildings with gross floor area of 50,000 square feet and 10 or more dwelling units are required to comply.

Exemptions:

Buildings are exempt if at least 50 percent of the property's gross floor area is occupied by a public agency; 10 percent of the property's gross floor area functions as a data center, television studio, or trading floor; 10 percent of the property's gross floor area is used for manufacturing processing, commercial processing, agricultural processing or industrial processing, if the environmental conditions within the property are governed mainly by the operations or processes within the building.
Additional exemptions:
1. Any owner of the property is an insolvent person at any time during the year.
2. If at any time during the year the property is subject to a tax arrears certificate; a power of sale or foreclosure under a mortgage; or a write of execution.
3. During that year, the property has an average occupancy rate of less than 50 percent.
4. The property is newly constructed and a certificate for the occupancy is issued in that year

Transparency:

Required Transparency:

Yes

Transparency Trigger:

Date Certain

Frequency:

Annually

Notes:

The Ontario Energy Ministry will not publicly disclose the first year of reported data for each of the three roll-out phases to provide an opportunity for building owners to gain experience with reporting before their data is made publicly available.
Data elements that will be publicly disclosed include property identification and building performance information, such as ENERGY STAR score, energy, water and GHG intensity, building age and confirmation of whether data was verified by an accredited or certified professional.

Reporting:

Required Reporting:

Yes

Utility Requirements/Support:

Utility Requirements/Support:

Yes

Notes:

A utility/power distributor must provide aggregated whole building monthly energy consumption data to a property owner who requests it.

Verification:

Verification:

Yes

Notes:

Buildings that are greater than or equal to 100,000 square feet will be required to have their data verified by an accredited or certified professional in the first year they are required to report, then every five years thereafter to ensure the reliability of publicly reported data.
Verification may be performed by someone who holds an accreditation or certification from an accrediting body recognized in Canada or the United States that qualifies the person to perform data verification such as a certified energy manager, building operator, measurement and verification professional or commissioning agent. The verifier may be an employee of the owner.